THE FIELD GUIDE TO SPORTS METAPHORS

A gift-worthy playbook of common and unexpected words and idioms that have their roots in sports and games.

There are many metaphors we can quickly identify from the realm of sports: covering all the bases (baseball), game plan (football), and par for the course (golf). But the English language is also peppered with the not-so-obvious influence of sports and games, such as go-to guy (basketball) and dead ringer (horse racing).
Filled with pithy entries on each idiom, plus quotes showing how big talkers from President Obama to rapper Ice-T use them, this quirky little handbook from former minor league ballplayer and award-winning journalist Josh Chetwynd is sure to be a conversation starter at tailgates, cocktail parties, and in the boardroom.

JOSH CHETWYND is a journalist, broadcaster, former minor league baseball player, and New York Times best-selling author. He’s served as a staff reporter for USA Today, the Hollywood Reporter, and U.S. News & World Report, and his writing has also appeared in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, the Times (of London), and the Harvard Negotiation Law Review and Variety. As a broadcaster, he’s worked for the BBC, among other outlets. In terms of his sports bona fides, he primarily earned them on the baseball diamond, where he played at the NCAA Division I college level for Northwestern University and had professional stints in both the United States for the Zanesville Greys in the independent Frontier League and abroad for Sweden’s Oskarshamn BSK in Europe. This is his sixth book, having previously written on sports three times. His 2011 effort, The Secret History of Balls: The Stories Behind the Things We Love to Catch, Whack, Throw, Kick, Bounce, and Bat, was named an NPR best book that year. He lives in Denver, Colorado, with his wife and two children.